A FBOW excerpt in sequence :

Ruby’s Roots & Retrospective 6

New York, New York: July 30, 1956

“Yeah, pal...” answering Ruby’s question, “...it sure does get windy but no worse than here at times, except maybe downtown or along Michigan Avenue. But one thing about Chicago: the people there are really friendly. I haven’t been all over, but from what I’ve been told and seen, no one’s as friendly as mid- westerners… Where you from, Ruby?”

“Baltimore now, but my mother is originally from ‘New Orleans’. That’s why I’m named ‘Rubidoux’. It’s French… You see I’m named after my great, great grandpa…” looking at Mitchell, “who was a slave holder.”

Stopped in traffic, “A ‘slave holder’?” Looking to his right, his eyes locked with Ruby’s.

Knowing only what he had learned of the south in school. To a twentieth century boy from Chicago, slavery—even thought history books said it had existed—was a phenomenon that was so far removed from Mitchell’s mind that it was almost an incomprehensible fact.

“You mean he actually ‘owned’ slaves!” Thinking, ‘Owned’ people?

“Yeah, he did! And ol’ Rubidoux—and from what I’ve been told he was a miserable son of-a-bitch forced his, uh, attentions on my great, great gra’ma. And his son, ‘Rubidoux Junior’… oh God, how I hope both’a them fuckers are rotting in hell, forced himself onto my great gra’ma... even though she was only twelve.”

Another incomprehensible fact: “ ‘Twelve’!”

Hearing an impatient blat from the horn of the car behind, Mitchell pressed on the accelerator. “You mean they were able to do stuff like that? To just, uh, do ‘it’ if they wanted? To ‘anyone’? To ‘kids’?”

“Mitch, those fuckers were like kings!” Ruby said bitterly. “They were the ‘masters’! They could do whatever the fuck they wanted to ‘anyone’ so long as they were shvartzers and the fuckers owned ‘em!”

“But, Ruby, a white guy? To just, uh, do it with a twelve year old negro girl?”

“Jesus, Lipensky, you’re so naïve! ‘Rape’ ‘em, ya mean! You don’t think white guys want to fuck shvartzers?”

A memory: ‘You don’t think white guys want to fuck shvartzers’?

Retrospective 6:

Junior Johnson

Chicago, Illinois

1951

His cocked elbows on the banister, his chin nestled in the palms of his hands he watched from his porch as the five Negro kids—three boys and two girls—played softball.

He’d seen them playing in the alley before and thought they lived in the recently converted, now multi-flat building across the alley where not too long ago Sharon Duffy lived with her mother and the Gogulski twins lived with their parents.

“’Ey, Leroy hit dat ball!” The largest of the group was sitting on the broken cement incinerator calling encouragement to the batter.

Closing his eyes, “Oh, God,” his lips moving in a whispered prayer because he believed that unless he prayed out loud God wouldn’t hear him, “please, God, let it be Norman and Phyllis and Big Rosalind and the Gogulski’s, and God, please, God, let things be like before!” Closing his eyes, tighter, One… two, he counted silently,three…

“’Ey! You, ‘boy’!”

Four… five… Slowing, giving God more time, six… seven…

“ ‘You’! Da white boy on the third floor!”

“Eight…” Knowing his concentration had been broken. Knowing his prayer wouldn’t be answered. Opening his eyes he looked down at the boy.

Standing in the yard, “ ‘Ey’,” the boy called again. “Wh’ch’ya doin’?”

Thinking, Praying for you to disappear. “Uh, nothing,” he said.

“Don’t’j’ya be doin’ that!” The boy said in a loud, friendly tone.

“Doing what?”

“Standin’ way up there doin’ nothin’! Come on down, boy. We’s only five an’ needs us another player.”

“Me?” Poking his chest with his thumb. “You want me?”

“Lordy! Yeah, you!” The boy threw the ball. Surprised at the accuracy Mitchell instinctively caught it. “We won’t eat’ch’ya! Come on down!”

Actually, Yeah, I do, wanna play ball with them, he thought.

However, having ‘no’ reason to be, he was afraid of them.

But if I don’t go down and play with them, they’ll think I’m prejudiced or something, and I sure don’t need a bunch of shvartzer kids, especially that big one, thinking I’’m prejudiced.

“So, ya comin’?”

Throwing the ball back. “Yeah, why not?”

Opening the screen door, “Mom,” he yelled, “I’m going downstairs to play ball!” Letting the door slam shut, he clumped down the stairs.

“Hi!” Feeling intimidated, holding his hand forward “I’m Mitch Lipensky.”

“’Ey, Mitch.” Big, six-foot-two with thick, muscular arms, “I’m ‘Junior Johnson’.” Grasping Mitchell’s hand, shaking it in a strong grip. “An’ this here’s my sister, ‘Katie’.”

“ ‘Junior’? I’d sure hate to see senior.”

Looking at the tall, angular girl, “Hi, Katie.”

Nodding her head, “Mitch,” the girl said shyly.

“An’ this here’s my baby brother, ‘Baby Joe’.”

Warming to the group, Mitchell smiled. “Do I call you ‘Baby Joe’?”

Smiling back, showing two missing front teeth. “Not lessin’ you wants’a be missin’ your teef, too.” A smaller, younger duplicate of his big brothe. “You jus’ call me ‘Joe’,” the boy said.

“An’ this here’s ‘Leroy’. Leroy lives over there,” pointing in the direction of the old Duffy apartment.

“Leroy...” holding his hand out, “...hi.”

Leroy hesitated a moment, then, a smile coming to his thick lips, accepting the handshake. “Yeah, hi.”

“An’ this is…” Junior said proudly, “...my girlfriend, ‘Lousy’.”

“ ‘Lousy’?” Mitchell looked at the girl. “Did he say your name’s ‘Louise’?”

“Yeah. Dat’s what I said,” Junior repeated. “ ‘Lousy’.”

The ebony-colored girl was small, about five-three, and ‘maybe’ fourteen years old. She had a thin, Caucasian nose with wide, flaring nostrils, sensuous—though not overly by Mitchell’s standards—full lips and, for a girl her size, unusually large breasts. Her almond-shaped black eyes looking up from under long, thick lashes. “Hi.” she said.

He had watched her from three stories up, especially when she ran the bases and thought she was pretty then but, close up, God, she’s beautiful! His eyes flicking from her face to her chest Mitchell saw that Louise was not wearing a bra and could actually see the clearly defined, circular projections of her nipples under the tightly stretched, white cotton T-shirt. Swallowing, forcing himself to keep from licking his lips. Sensing a tightening in his crotch as his thumping heart pumped blood downward, the dual thoughts of the dark intensity of her nipples and, if her pubic hair matched the tight nap of the hair on her head simultaneously flitted through his mind and, Oh, God! I’d love to see her naked! I’d love to f…

Prodding him with his elbow, “Real looker, ain’t she?”

Forcing his eyes from the girl’s chest. Looking at Junior, “Uh,” not sure how to respond. “Yeah, she sure is.” he said, thinking, He’s ‘got’ to be fuckin’ her! And Mitchell felt two things: a deep jealousy of this black boy and at the same time wondered, Is there something wrong with me for even ‘thinking’ of fucking a shvartzer girl?

****

That night, in bed, That wasn’t so bad, Mitchell thought. If he asks, I’d play ball with them again.

****

Never having more than a fleeting contact with people of the Negro race, it was not as though Mitchell Lipensky had any preconceived conceptions about Negroes—he’d had no conception at all and not knowing is what had frightened him.

Not knowing that with most people prejudicial and economic conditions dictate the way they’re forced to live.

Ain’t nothing wrong with them! Mitchell concluded, They’re just kids with brown skin… And, ‘God’, that Lousy!

Mitchell spent the next twenty minutes concocting a passionate although ‘ totally’ impossible scenario where he and Louise— to the best of his imagination— were naked together and shvartzer or not, yes indeed, they did fuck.

And he did it night after night and occasionally in the afternoon… In his hand held fantasies.

And during that time— when he thought about it—the fact that her skin was black only added to the mystique of Louise.

****

You don’t think white guys want to fuck shvartzers?

“Yeah, Ruby, I guess you’re right. I met this beautiful Negro girl once…”

“Mitch,” cutting him off, “did you think of her as a girl first, or a shvartzer first?”

“Jesus, Ruby,” he said defensively, “she was ‘beautiful’!”

“Yeah!” Turning on the seat—gauging the depth of their budding friendship—looking at Mitchell intently. “But what did you feel about this girl, Mitch? What did you ‘really’ feel about this girl?”

Glancing to the right. Thinking, remembering, he quickly brought his eyes forward again.

Mitchell did not know word ‘mulatto’ and thought of Ruby in the old west term of ‘half-breed’.

As shocked as he had been when he’d first met Ruby that morning, now, looking at him, he was surprised because he no longer saw Ruby as a white black man but as a friend and felt that as a friend it would be for the best if he told the truth about Louise and that long ago meeting, although he was not sure he really knew the answer to the question.

“I was sixteen and she was, I think, about fourteen and she he was ‘beautiful’, Ruby! And when I first saw her I thought of her as…” He stopped. “When I first met Louise I thought of her as ‘just’ a beautiful girl and wanted to see her tits and fuck her more than anything in the world!

Then—I’m sorry, Ruby—but then I thought that maybe something was wrong with me and felt ashamed of myself for wanting to fuck a…” Hesitating, not knowing if he should use the slang, Yiddish word, but, What the hell, he thought, Ruby uses it. “I felt ashamed of myself for wanting to fuck a shvartzer.”

“Tell me, if you had a legal right to fuck her and if she ‘didn’t’ want you to, what would you have done?”

“I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

If ‘you’!... If ‘Mitchell Lipensky’… Being ‘yourself’’ were her ‘master’ Being ‘you’ and had the opportunity to fuck this girl without any trouble coming back to you, would you?”

Answering immediately. “No! I would ‘not’!”

“Why?”

I was brought up not to take what isn’t mine or to hurt anyone and as much as I wanted to fuck Louise, unless she wanted me to, I just ‘wouldn’t’… Actually I don’t think I could.”

Satisfied with the honest answer. “Know what, Mitch? Maybe you and I ‘can’ be friends.”

“I’ve been thinking that we ‘are’ friends.”

“Me, too.”

Looking forward, quiet a few seconds…

“Anyway...” going on with his story. “...my great, great grandpa raped my great, great gra’ma and made her pregnant and thirteen years later the old fucker’s son, ‘Rubidoux Junior’, raped my great gra’ma...”

“When she was only twelve?”

“Yeah, only he didn’t knock her up. And then a little something happened called the ‘Civil War’ and my great, great gra’ma ran away north to Baltimore. But Baltimore is on the ‘Mason-Dixon Line’ so even with the Civil War things weren’t so great there either and after another ‘mixed breeding’ with my great gra’ma, my gra’ma came along, who was a real pretty ‘high yellow’ lady that was able to pass…”

“ ‘Pass’? What’s it mean: ‘high yellow’ and what do you mean by ‘pass’?”

“High yellow means her skin was almost white, and that she had Caucasian features; you know, straight hair and with a nose and lips like yours—like a white person. Understand?”

Nodding his head, “Yeah.”

“And she was able to become… To ‘pretend’ she was white: to ‘pass’ for white.”

Expecting a question, Ruby stopped. When none came, “My grandpa thought my gra’ma was white but when my mama was born she had just enough of her mother’s features for grandpa to ‘think’ he knew she wasn’t white. So grandpa—I hope he’s rotting in hell with alongside the Rubidouxs—threw my gra’ma and mama out and twenty years later someone came along who’d just migrated from Germany: my daddy, ‘Doctor Lewis Meyers’. He and mama fell in love and even though mama told him she wasn’t white, that she was… ‘is’ a shvartzer papa didn’t care.

“So they were married and were able to keep mama’s secrete till, lo and behold, I was born.” Chuckling, “An’ here I be’s ‘Mas’sa’! Why my mama ever wanted to be reminded of those assholes back in New Orleans and why she named me Rubidoux I’ll never know!”

He laughed. “Except being a white, Jewish shvartzer and having a name like ‘Rubidoux Meyers’ maybe would only tend to toughen me up.” Flexing his right arm, thick biceps swelling beneath the taunt flesh, “That’s why I worked so hard to get these, and to keep ’em. And when I was younger, unless it was a bunch’a kids—hell, it was shvartzer kids as much as white kids—if it was only one or two at a time I’d take ’em both on and beat the shit out of ’em!”

His voice beginning to rise again. “Take it easy, pal.” Patting Ruby’s knee. “You’re among friends.”

Leaning back, closing his eyes. “Yeah, I know, Mitch. Sorry.” Quiet a moment, opening his eyes, “Shit, Lipensky, I even had a Bar Mitzvah!”

“Really? No shit!”

“Yeah.” Putting his hand atop his head, Ruby recited, “Ba-ruch a-taAdonai, Eh-lo-hei-nu meh-ech ha-o-lam, bo-rei p’ri ha-gafen.”

“Yeah, me too.” As his cap was on, Mitchell, too, recited, “Ba-ruch a-yaAdonai…”

“When it looked like I might be drafted, I joined the Coast Guard Reserve which bought me a little more time in college. When my active duty time came up— after some time on a buoy tender— papa pulled a couple’a strings and got me shipped to H.Q… But when that prick ‘Frohlick’ took a look at me, he knew just where I belonged—Except I type twenty, thirty words a minute and if anyone should be in the front office, it’s me!”

“But instead they stuck you in Addressograph.”

“Yeah. But you know what?” Not waiting for an answer. “I’m glad, ‘cause I come and go as I please and do whatever the hell I want and, like I said, so long’s I do my job nobody bothers with me. And now that you’re here and I don’t even have to ride the fuckin’ subway, life is just fine!”

“What were you taking in college?”

“I started with ‘business administration’, but papa wanted me to try pre-med so I applied, and when this is over...” tapping the Coast Guard shield sewn on the sleeve of Mitchell’s tunic, “...that’s what I’ll do.”

“Jesus, Ruby,” said in near awe, “a ‘doctor’!”

Catching the tone of his voice, laughing, “Mitch, I don’t know if I can even get into pre-med, and if I do it’ll be years before I’m a doctor… How’s about you? Were you in college?”

“Yeah...” Thinking, for a month. “...but not for long.”

“What were you taking?”

Answering honestly “Taking up space mostly.”

“What are your plans when you get out? You going back to college?”

“Don’t remember if I told you, but my wife’s expecting…”

“No, you didn’t! I can’t believe it! We’ve talked all day and you never mentioned that your wife’s pregnant.”

“I don’t know why I didn’t say anything...”

Wondering to himself: Fear of the future? Maybe because I let it happen so soon?

“...Guess it just slipped my mind. Well, anyway she is, and I’ll have a wife and baby to support. And to tell the truth I’ve never been much of a student. Matter of fact, I was one of those guys that did nothing but fuck up in school. So I guess I’ll be going to work for my dad as a salesman. He’s a commercial photographer and has a studio downtown in Chicago.”

“You interested in photography?”

“No, not really, but I can’t think of anything else to do.” Wanting to change the subject, “I imagine most of the single guys live in Manhattan, closer to the office. How come you live in Brooklyn?”

“Because it’s closer to my girlfriend’s house. Sherry lives in Brooklyn with her folks.”

“Hey, I’ve got an idea! Let me check with Marsha first…”

Their very first argument had been caused when Mitchell had made a plan without consulting Marsha. So he’d learned, early into their marriage—two days into their marriage to be exact—that Marsha wanted to be consulted ‘whenever’ he made a plan that included her. Or actually whenever he made any plan.

“…but maybe on Saturday, if you’re not busy, you and your girlfriend can come over for dinner and then maybe we’ll sit around and talk or go to a movie or something. What if I let you know tomorrow?”

“Sounds good to me, Mitch. I’ll check with Sherry, too.”

****

Marsha usually worked from nine to five.

Mitchell would leave the office at 4:30 and since the drive from Manhattan to the I.A.P. garage...—where he traded the I.A.P vehicle for his car—...and from the garage to Bensonhurst took about forty-five minutes, Marsha would be waiting for him to pick her up.

****

Leaning across the seat, “Hi, baby,” he opened the door.

Sitting. “Hi!” Kissing briefly. “So,” Marsha asked, “how was your day?”

“Well, it started out kind’a shitty.” Glancing in the rear view mirror, he pulled away from the curb. “Because I’m not such a hot typist, I got shipped from the office to a place ‘way’ back called the Addressograph room.”

“Oh! And does this bother you?”

“Yeah, it did. At first a lot. But there’s this other… uh, ‘really’ interesting guy there about my age by the name of ‘Ruby Meyers’.”

“ ‘Meyers’! He Jewish?”

“He’s, uh…”—deciding—“Yeah, he is. We hit it off pretty good and it looks like him’n’me could really be friends.”

Marsha knew that although her husband had spoken jokingly about the men in the office not shooting paper clips or rubberbands at him, he ‘was’ upset over the lack of friendship there. However, “ ‘Ruby’?” Marsha questioned the unlikely first name— at least for a man.

“He’s from ‘Baltimore’...” — as though that explained the name— “... and lives in Brooklyn because his girlfriend lives there. I’m going to be giving him a lift to the office and home every day, and thought that maybe him and Sherry—that’s his girlfriend—maybe they can come over for dinner Saturday evening then we can stay home and talk, or go to a movie.”

“ ‘Mitchell’!”

“I ‘know’!” Patting her inner thigh. “I told him I’d check with you first.”

“You’re learning.”

“So, is it okay?”

Figuring she could use a friend, too. Also, since being married last December this would be the first opportunity to entertain in her own home. “ ‘Saturday’? Actually excited at the thought. “Sure! What should I make?” Adding, “That I ‘can’ make.”

“Let’s keep it simple.” Remembering Ruby had said that he was kosher… That he was ‘kind’ of kosher. Also knowing that his wife was not— to say the least — much of a cook. “How’s about baked chicken, mashed potatoes, peas and salad.”

Thinking a moment. ‘Baked chicken and mashed potatoes’. “Yeah...” Marsha said, “...I can make that!”

Next FBOW excerpt in sequence: Mixed Blood